


Alabaster, in a moment of respite

by Lleu



Category: The Broken Earth Series - N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 13:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17044595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleu/pseuds/Lleu
Summary: You do your best not to drift when you’re in bed with Innon; some nights you have more success than others.





	Alabaster, in a moment of respite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shealynn88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/gifts).



“Hey,” Innon says softly, and you blink, pull your mind back from things that shouldn’t matter anymore but still — no matter how often you encourage Syen to forget them — do.

“Sorry,” you say, rolling over in your bed so you can look at him. He’s looking intently back at you, mostly amused but with, you think, a hint of worry; you can sense a slight tension in his shoulders. “My mind was —”

“— wandering,” he finishes. “I noticed. You got so still...”

“Sorry,” you say again, a little lamely. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“It’s all right,” he says, then leans across to kiss you, softly. Innon has always been surprisingly soft — always so gentle with you. You didn’t even have to ask: he knew before you told him. _Even with Hess it wasn’t like_  — but you cut that train of thought short.

“You’re drifting again,” Innon says. “Hey.” He puts his arm around you, pulls you close so your face is resting against his — _very handsome_  — chest. “Stay with me.”

You want — almost — to tell him the whole story. He’s never asked you, which you suppose makes sense. Meov is a comm of pirates; you’re not the only one with a history you wish you could forget.

Instead, you snuggle closer to him, press your face into him, close your eyes, breathe deep. “Thank you.”

Instead of answering he slides one hand up to rest comfortably at the back of your neck; you lean slightly into the touch and exhale slowly, trying to let your tension go. It doesn’t actually work, but, for now, it’s good enough.

You wake up to sunbeams across your chest, and you’re not surprised to find that while Syen has come and gone already, Innon’s still there with you, snoring peacefully, one leg sprawled over yours, his arm still under your neck. You extricate yourself, carefully, smiling indulgently at him as he stirs slightly and rolls over.

Outside, the sky is a shade of clear blue that could almost make you forget about the Earth under your feet, if it weren’t for the sense you have, even here, of Allia, smoldering still at the edge of the Stillness proper, like a warning. You shiver involuntarily. _Bad memories._

Closer to you, though, are good ones: you can feel Innon’s orogeny, rough around the edges but warm and comforting, just like him. Maybe today you’ll try another lesson (an occasional, never yet successful experiment).

_No._ You’d only get frustrated and spoil everyone’s mood on such a beautiful day. You look out, now, instead of up. You’d seen the ocean many times before you got to Meov, but seeing it from an island is still a surprise, especially on a day like this, when sea and sky blur together at the edges. It’s almost enough to give you vertigo; Innon would laugh at you, not unkindly, if you told him this. Maybe you will — you like that you can make him laugh. That he laughs so easily and earnestly, a proper _guffaw_.

There’s plenty of laughter at the Fulcrum, at least among the ringed, but very little of it is _earnest_. (Guardians like roggas happy, but never _too_ happy.)

“Hey.” It’s Innon’s voice; you turn to see him standing, naked except for a blanket draped around his shoulders, in the doorway. He’s smiling, a little sleepily still.

“Hey,” you answer, feeling, like you do every time you see him, a sudden rush of affection. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Your mind is wandering again.” It’s half a question; there’s a note of concern in his voice. You move over to him and allow him to wrap his arms around you, pull you in close.

“No,” you say, “I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

You press a kiss onto his skin where his neck meets his collarbone. “How beautiful it is here. How beautiful you are.”

“Mm.” He squeezes you more tightly and shifts so you can feel the stirring at his groin; you smile, and he says, “ _You’re_ beautiful, ’Baster.”

The words spill out before you’ve had time to think them fully: “I think I love you.”

”Ahh,” he sighs. “I love you, too.”

“I never...” you start to say, then trail off, unsure how to continue. You know it makes Innon uncomfortable when you dwell too much on the mainland, but suddenly you _have_ to say this. “I...I never knew it could be like this. I mean, I knew what it was like in the lorist stories, and there were _moments_ , but I never thought it could _really_ be like this, for _me_. For _us_. For a _rogga_.” You kiss his neck again. “And now, somehow, it _is_.”

“Now it is,” he agrees; you pull away for a second, just so you can see his face, and you see that he’s grinning broadly. “Yes.” He kisses you again, deeply, his hands sliding down your body. “Now, come back to bed?”

You answer without words.

*

There are clouds on the horizon when the two of you emerge again, but distant ones. Innon, with a seaman’s eye, says, “We’ll have rain tonight.”

The rest of the sky is clear still,just a few small wisps of white scattered across it; you take Innon’s hand and lead him, shaking your head at his curious questions, up to the bluffs, where you flop down onto the grass, pulling him down with you. He ends up lying on top of you, and you both start laughing as you push him — playfully resisting you — off. Finally you’re both lying on your backs, staring up into the blue.

There’s a light, cool breeze blowing off the sea, a pleasant contrast to the late-spring-early-summer warm air. You can feel the Earth under you, of course — you don’t need to be lying down on it to do that. You can feel, too, fuzzy but somehow comforting, the shifting currents and waves of the ocean. A single small cloud scuds across your frame of vision.

You reach out and fumble for Innon’s hand; his fingers fall into place between yours, and for a moment you are, you think, perfectly happy.

“I love you,” you say again, more confidently this time. You hear-feel Innon turn his head to look at you, so you look back at him; there’s so much warmth there that you almost want to cry. (And you _can_ , too, with him — Innon will never judge you, and no-one here is watching your every move for any sign of weakness they can exploit, or danger that means they’ll have to kill you.) (Now you _are_ crying, just a little.) He squeezes your hand.

“I love you, too.”

You close your eyes and feel a tear roll down your cheek, and then Innon moves (you feel him shifting like a mountain next to you) to catch it. You open your eyes again to look at him, propped up on his elbow, smiling down at you with just a hint of concern.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” you say, smiling back, and you think, _This is it_.

*

_You return to this moment often in later days, this one perfect morning (not quite the first, and not the last — the last came much later). The light falling on Innon’s face, the weight of his arms around you, holding you. The warmth of his breath against your cheek._

*

When, finally, you allow that, yes, you _do_ need to start your day, Innon stands up first, then helps pull you to your feet and then into one more hug. You look out at the water again, glittering (almost blinding) with reflected sunlight.

“It almost makes me dizzy,” you say, gesturing out at the water. “It’s so _open_. No walls, no mountains, even — not above the surface, anyway. Just the ocean and the sky, forever.”

“Yes,” Innon agrees. “No walls.” He looks proud, and you can understand why. “We don’t need them out here.”

Your life flashes before you: walled in in Yumenes, walled in outside it, separated by your uniform and rings and by who you _are_ , walling yourself in even when you found people you think (thought?) of as friends. People who recognized you as _human_. But there are no walls in Meov — not the real kind, anyway, just house walls. There are no walls with Innon. (That’s what you tell yourself, anyway.)

“No,” you agree, and if it hasn’t _quite_ been true yet, you resolve to make it true from now on, with him if with no-one else. “No more walls.”


End file.
